Wiki Project, Part I

My classes used wiki technology to create writings that were both group collaborations and individual reflections. Wikis allow users to create, edit, and monitor changes from any computer. Distance collaboration offers additional opportunities for group work, altering the boundaries between in-class work and out-of-class engagements. Similarly, wikis can be used so that they alter the boundaries between group and individual work.

Here is the link to one of the wikis: http://section56group3.wikispaces.com/

Students created group wiki pages that defined a particular writing construct and explored its impact on student writing practices. We developed an understanding of constructs by reading and reacting to articles in our course textbook Writing about Writing: In our class, constructs are concepts about writing that appear natural but are in fact created by social and cultural practices. Students related with Joseph William’s article “Phenomenology of Error” because of their past experiences with grading. The majority of the students felt that error was the dominant practice in the evaluation of student writing. Several groups in each section chose to write about error. Other groups chose writing constructs such as plagiarism, perspective, and writing itself. In some cases it wasn’t clear that the students understood their “construct” when they made these decisions. The process of building the wiki shows how their ideas developed.

The wiki writings were organized through home pages that defined the construct and its effects on student writing practices. Individual students linked additional pages to key words featured on the home page. These individual pages featured student narratives about personal encounters with the writing construct. In most cases these narratives developed a stronger articulation of how the construct works. As they analyzed their experiences, students appeared to understand what is at stake for their own literacy. The home pages, however, demonstrated a clearer definitional statement.

What I really like about these writings is how the dialogic voices of the individual writings support the group authored home page. You can use the “History” function to monitor all changes to the wiki. The times logged for each edit show that the collaborative work was nearly complete before the individual pages were created. The group first came to understand the construct through collaboration which then allowed individuals to write more analytical reflections about their own literacy experiences. The final result displays a unified consensus supported by individual expressions.